Grand Theatre
15 East Second Street,
Tulsa,
OK
74103
15 East Second Street,
Tulsa,
OK
74103
No one has favorited this theater yet
Designed by Architect L. B. Senter in Colonial/Federal Revival Style, Tulsa’s Grand Opera House opened 1906 to showcase big time touring stage presentation and opera companies. This theater was quite successful with touring opera vehicles until the mid 1930s when depression era financial woes caused ticket sales to slump. It was then leased to feature Grand National Pictures, but still presented an occassional live stage show.
During the WWII years, the house became a popular newsreel venue, then briefly switched to second rate burlesque. Finally, during the late 1940s, the Grand Theatre closed and was converted into a furniture sales showroom. It was demolished in 1973.
Contributed by
O. K. Snedley
Want to be emailed when a new comment is posted about this theater?
Just login to your account and subscribe to this theater
Recent comments (view all 26 comments)
When the Grand was a burlesque house “patrons' listened to these snappy tunes while strip-tease queens pranced up and down the run-way …
View link
View link
View link
javascript:openRecsRadio(‘/gp/recsradio/radio/B0000033ZA/ref=pd_krex_listen_dp_img/102-0656888-2129720?ie=UTF8&refTagSuffix=dp%5Fimg’)
Courtesy of this album
View link
Hear this peppy example of a strip-tease tune …
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JmTYdousWkg
and here are some fun examples of strip queen routines …
View link
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M5PEJmBdtAE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mIdt0aLl3Bg
Tame by todays standards, but quite racy back in the day!
This bouncy montage shows the type of burlesque routines that were performed live upon the Grand lighted runway-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mIdt0aLl3Bg
A 100-year-old tinted picture postcard view of the Grand Theatre can be seen on below site by typing in “tulsa second street looking west”,
View link
I’ve found two sources saying that the Grand Opera House in Tulsa burned in 1920. The first is this timeline from an Oklahoma genweb page. The second is more thorough, but also problematic as it gives the address of the theater as 117 E. 2nd Street. It is from the October, 1921, issue of the journal Safety Engineering:
Were there two different Grand Theatres in Tulsa, one block apart? The address discrepancy might be an error in the 1921 publication, or perhaps Tulsa renumbered its blocks at some time. The photos from before 1920 and from the much later period when the building had become a furniture store show that the facade of the theater was the same, fire or not. Presumably the building was only gutted. I’ve been unable to find any other sources providing information about the fire, or saying anything about the rebuilding of the Grand Theatre.JV; this will add even more confusion to the matter. Here are photos of the old Grand Theatre, 1973 http://cdm15020.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm4/item_viewer.php?CISOROOT=/p15020coll1&CISOPTR=12619&CISOBOX=1&REC=11 1906 http://cdm15020.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm4/item_viewer.php?CISOROOT=/p15020coll1&CISOPTR=16197&CISOBOX=1&REC=15
The address currently listed on this page is wrong then. The caption of the photo of the Opera House on this web page says that it was located on the north side of Second Street between Boston Avenue and Cincinnati Avenue. That’s the 100 E. block, so 115 E. Second would be the correct address, the entrance having been in the middle of the facade.
Kewpie’s links worked for me. Here they are embedded in glorious HTML:
Opera House photo from 1971.
Opera House photo from 1906.
And here is the 1920 Tulsa City Directory (you’ll have to click the “pages 40 & 41” link in the frame on the left.)
Furthur information from Tulsa Directory, p46, seating capacity- 800, Mgr- E.L. Butler
This informative link has a history and sharp photos of the Grand Theatre,
http://www.tulsagal.net/search/label/Grand%20Opera%20House